Scientific Board
Biography
Dr. Jeffrey W. Hall was introduced to the wonderful world of microbiology at Oregon State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. Subsequently, he entered the Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota. He was fortunate to join a laboratory housed in the Veterinary School where he studied environmental sensing and transcriptional regulation of virulence factors of the animal and human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. As the program was housed in the Medical School, this unique position within the two schools gave Jeffrey the opportunity to learn about and study the animal and human medical fields, two areas of science that are often separated. As a Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award Fellow in the University of Minnesota Dental School, Jeffrey studied environmental sensing of Streptococcus gordonii, a commensal of the oral microbiome. This work led to the publication of data describing a eukaryotic-like sensory mechanism used by S. gordonii and other Gram-positive bacteria to monitor production and secretion of adhesive-molecules as they are placed on the external peptidoglycan wall, which facilitates biofilm formation. Following his fellowship, Jeffrey entered the animal biologics research field as a research scientist. He has worked on the development of novel vaccines, methods for production efficiency improvements, and the implementation and validation of new technologies for production. He currently is the Director of Research and Development for Vetanco USA and oversees the development of their Biotech Vac vaccine platform in the U.S.
Biography
Anna Obolensky obtained her MSc in Clinical Immunology from Kings College London as a mature student and went to complete her DPhil in Immunopathology at Oxford University in 2003. She has worked extensively in several sectors including big pharma (now GSK), biotech (Porton International and Pacific GeneTech) and the charity sector (British Heart Foundation). Her main role now is Director of Translational Research as the senior scientific consultant to a vaccine company specialising in animal and food safety vaccines. She is transitioning this as an oral vaccine for clinical use in developing countries to combat the high mortality and morbidity rates in children from bacterial dysentery. The technology is based on cross-protective trimeric recombinant protein antigens expressed on the surface of a bacterial vector. Her work involves all aspects of the clinical development of this vaccine including safety and regulatory affairs.
Biography
Prof. Aneta Nitsch-Osuch – a specialist in pediatrics, epidemiology, public health. The head of Department of Social Medicine and Public Health, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland, member of the Scientific Board of the National Program of Influenza Prevention and Scientific Board of Polish Sanitary Inspection. Her Scientific interests focused on vaccines and vaccinations, hospital antibiotic policy and epidemiology of infectious diseases.
Biography
Dr. Hiep Vu has a passionate interest in swine virology. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Veterinary Medicine in 2005 from Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. After that, he pursued his graduate training at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical sciences, University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL), where he received his Master and PhD in 2007 and 2013, respectively. Dr. Vu is now an Assistant Professor at the Nebraska Center for Virology and Department of Animal Science, UNL. His laboratory is devoted to study swine viruses. The research topics that are studied in his laboratory include: (i) Host immune responses to viral infection or vaccination, (ii) Molecular characteristics of the viruses currently circulating in the swine population, and (iii) rational designs of vaccines capable of eliciting broadly protective immunity. He is the principal investigator on two patents pertaining to the development of a vaccine for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). He is serving as an Associate Editor for Journal of Medical Virology and a Guest Editor for a special issue in Vaccines.
Biography
Angela Sousa obtained her PhD in Biochemistry in 2011 at the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Portugal, and was awarded with two postdoctoral grants in 2012 and 2015. From 2017 to 2018, she was Invited Assistant Professor and since 2018 she is Assistant Researcher from Health Sciences Research Centre (CICS) of UBI. Her main scientific research includes the implementation of new biotechnological platforms to obtain biopharmaceuticals with potential applications in DNA vaccines against cervical cancer or COVID-19 and gene therapy approaches against cancer. In particular, the biosynthesis, isolation and purification of plasmids, minicircle DNA and RNA has being largely investigated through the design and development of specific biotechnologies. Her work is also focused on the development of suitable nanosystems for nucleic acids stabilization, protection and targeted delivery to antigen presenting cells or cancer cells.
Biography
Dr. Kartoosh Heydari obtained his MD from Linkoping Health University, Sweden in 2001. He has held various senior positions in Biomedical and Biotechnology fields at Stanford University, Yale University and University of California Berkeley from 2001 to 2018. Since 2018 he has functioned as the Director of FACS Facility and Associate Scientific Director of IND development at Stanford Healthcare-Cellular Therapy Facility (SHC-CTF), Stanford Health Care, Stanford. He has been the editor of various journals on Immunobiology, Cancer, High-Dimensional (Hi-D) Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting and Infection subjects.
Biography
Professor S. Louise Cosby is a graduate (B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Microbiology) of Queen’s University Belfast and was a member of staff for over 30 years. She held the post of Chair of Microbiology in the School of Medicine Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences from 2002 to 2015. She is currently Head of Virology Branch at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Belfast and emeritus/honorary Professor at Queen's University Belfast. Professor Cosby is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (London) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK). In 1985 she was a visiting Associate Professor in Cornell University USA and has been an occasional visiting scientist at the Pirbright Institute, UK. Professor Cosby is an editor for 'Vaccines' and 'Frontiers in Microbiology'.
Biography
Anouar Alami was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1966. He studied Chemistry at Montpellier II University, France and He received his Ph.D. in 1991. He then joined in 1992 the Department of Chemistry at the FSDM, USMBA - Fez, Morocco. He prepared his state doctorate thesis degree in Organic Chemistry in 1997 at USMBA. Believing strongly in the cognitive complementarity of science and in parallel to all his responsibilities, he had prepared a DEUG (2008) and a License (2010) in Private Law in French and a Master in Economics and Management (2013) at the Faculty of Economics, Law, and Social Sciences of Fez. Concerning the scientific research side, Prof. Anouar Alami had published until 2019 more than 147 research articles indexed in several databases (Scopus, Web of science, Elsevier, Eric, IMIST…), in various fields: Heterocyclic chemistry, molecular biology, science education, applied research in pedagogy, Educational Technology). He has also edited three books on applied organic chemistry and science didactics.
Biography
Jorge Salvador has a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences, (University of Coimbra) a master’s degree in Organic & Technological Chemistry, (New University of Lisbon), and a Ph.D. in Pharmacy-Pharmaceutical Chemistry (University of Coimbra in collaboration with the University of York, UK). He spent one year as a Postdoc at the University of Sussex, UK. Post-grad. (1-year certif.) Cancer Biology & Therapeutics-HICR from Harvard-Medical School, University of Harvard, USA. He has a position as Full Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Coimbra and is a Non-Executive Member of the Board of CHEM4PHARMA, a start-up Pharmaceutical Company located in Portugal. Group leader of the research group “Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery” at Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.
Biography
Professor Christiane Pienna Soares graduated from the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, from São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Pharmacy and Biochemistry (1988). She has a Ph.D. in Pathologic Anatomy at Campinas State. University’s School of Medicine (UNICAMP) for developing a research of high-risk Human Papillomavirus (HPV), using the in-situ hybridization technique to typify HPV16 and HPV18 in paraffin embedded sections from endoscopic biopsies of esophageal lesions. After her doctorate, she continued molecular studies with low-risk HPV (6 and 11) and high-risk HPV (16 and 18) in oral cancer biopsies in collaboration with the Department of Pathology, at the School of Dentistry of Araraquara (UNESP). Her first post-doctorate study was accomplished at the University of São Paulo’s School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (FMUSP), under the supervision of Ph.D. Eduardo Antônio Donadi, evaluating RNA’s expression in head and neck cancer using microarray technology. In that context, she was invited to collaborate with Associated Professor Edson Garcia Soares, from the Department of Pathology at the University of São Paulo (USP), as supervisor of master, doctorate and post-doctoral students. After that, she was accepted to a second post-doctoral study in Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, at the Department of Infectious Diseases, under the supervision of Ph.D. Karl Munger. There, she worked with natural compounds in keratinocytes transfected with E6, E7 and E6^E7 DNA of HPV16. She’s spent all her career investigating therapeutic strategies using natural compounds against cancer development, engaging in a great variety of studies, with emphasis in head and neck cancer, as well as cervical cancer, all associated to HPV infection.
Biography
Dr. Giovanni Camussi , is Professor Emeritus, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Torino, Italy. He has been Research Associate Professor in Microbiology and Pathology at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA, and subsequently Full Professor of Nephrology at the Universities of Naples, Pavia and Torino. He has been Director of the Department of Internal Medicine and of PhD program in Medical Pathophysiology, President of Medical Biotechnology at UNITO, and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Department of Medicine, Brown University, RI, USA. He is currently Scientific Coordinator of stem cell research projects of 2i3T incubator of University of Torino. His H-index is 105.
Biography
Luciana C.C. Leite, has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of São Paulo (USP) and a Post-Doc at Institut Pasteur. She is currently Senior Researcher at the Vaccine Development Laboratory at Instituto Butantan, Brazil. She has worked in molecular biotechnology for development of vaccines, especially vaccines based on recombinant BCG, having over 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals and several patents. She has been Director of the Biotecnology Center and Vice-President of Butantan Foundation. She is member of the Academic Management Board of the master program of the Leading International Vaccinology Education of Erasmus/European Union and of the Ethics Committee for Research in Humans of USP.
Biography
Professor Dr. Luisa Maria Arvide Cambra, Spanish is now Professor with Chair at the University of Almería (Spain) and she was Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at the University of Granada from 1979 on. She is reviewer and member of the editorial board in several renowned scientific journals as well as member of the organizing, scientific & academic committees at prestigious international conferences. She is author of a many works on several aspects of the Arabic science and literature in the Middle Ages, as well as Arabic language and linguistics. She has also participated in different prestigious international scientific Conferences. She has visited many universities and academic institutions of Europe, United States and Arab countries in order to teach and research.
Biography
Dr. Pongsak Rattanachaikunsopon is a Professor in the Department of Biological Science at Ubon Ratchathani University, Thailand. He obtained Bachelor of Science in Radiological Technology at Mahidol University, Thailand and a Master of Science in Anatomy at Mahidol University, Thailand. He earned Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania USA. His research of interest is biocontrol. Present research focuses on using bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) as alternatives to control animal and human diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria. He has published more than 50 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of more than 10 reputed Journals.
Biography
Dr. Ester Leno Duran obtained her Ph.D. degree in Reproductive Immunology at Granada University, where she studied NK cells and decidual stromal cells in human pregnancies. She conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. Currently, she is a professor at the Department of Obstetric and Gynecology at Granada University, Spain.